VIII.
Mr. Muir was but a man. Powerful indeed in his way, but it was behind his pulpit-desk, with a sermon in his hands, his congregation before him,—or in carrying out any charitable project, or in managing the business specially devolving on him. He was nobody when he emerged from his own distinct path,—at least, such was his opinion; and being so, he would not be likely to attempt the enforcement of another view of his power on other men. He was afraid of himself now,—afraid that his own preferences had made him obtuse where loyalty would have given him a clearer vision.
Pity him, therefore, when Mr. Deane learned that the son of bondage in whose deliverance he took such proud delight, as surely became a good man who greatly valued freedom, aye, valued it as the pearl beyond all price,—when he learned that the slave had been seen going to the organist's room, and returning from it, and had not since been seen in H——.
Mr. Muir reflected on these tidings with perplexity, constrained, in spite of him, to believe that the slave had actually come on a secret errand, which he had fulfilled, and that not without enlightenment he had returned to his master.
The indignation a man feels, a man of the Deane order especially, when he finds that he has been imposed upon, though the deception has been in this instance of his own furtherance and establishment,—this kind and degree of indignation brought Mr. Deane like a firebrand into the next vestry-meeting. An end must be made of this matter at once. It was no longer a question whether anything had best be done. Something must be done; the public demanded, and he, as a good citizen, demanded, that the church should free herself of suspicion.
Mr. Muir felt, from the moment his eyes fell on Deane, that he played a losing game. Vain to help a woman who had fallen under that man's suspicion, useless to defend her! What should he do, then? Let her go? let her fall? Allow that she was a spy? Permit her disgrace, dismissal, arrest possibly? When War takes hold of women, the touch is not tender. Mr. Muir, it was obvious, was not a man of war. And he had to acknowledge to the Musical Committee, that, as to the result of his conversation with Mrs. Edgar, he had learned merely what was sufficient, indeed, to satisfy him of her loyalty, and that she would scorn to do a spy's work; but he had no proof to offer that might satisfy minds less "prejudiced" in her favor.
It was impossible not to perceive the dissatisfaction with which this testimony was received.
The Committee, however favorably disposed toward the organist, had their own suspicions to quiet, and a growing rumor among the people to quell. Positive proof must be adduced that the organist was not the wife of a Rebel general, or she must be removed from her place.
At a time when riot was rife, and street-tumult so common that the citizens, loyal or disloyal, had no real security, it was venturesome, dangerous, foolhardy, to allow a suspicion to fix, even by implication, on the church. If the organist, already sufficiently noted and popular in the town to attract within the church-walls scores of people who came merely for the music,—if she were suspected of collision with Southern traitors, she must pay the price. It was the proper tax on loyalty. The church must be free of blame.
So Mr. Muir, a second time on such business, went to Mrs. Edgar.
Various intimations as to what brave men might do in precisely his situation distracted him as he went. The fascinations of her power were strongly upon him. If he was a hero, here, surely, was a heroine. And in distress! Had Christian chivalry no demand to make, no claim on him?
All the way, as he went, he was counting the cost of his opposition to the vestry's will. If he only stood alone! If neither wife nor child had rights to be considered in advance of other mortals, and which, for the necessities of others, must surely not be waived! If Nature had not planted in him prudence, if he had only not that vexatious habit of surveying duties in their wholeness, and balancing consequences, he might, at the moment, enter into Don Quixote's joy. But,—and here he was at the head of the flight of stairs that led to her chamber, face to face with her.
Advance now, Christian minister! He comes slowly, weighed down by his burden of consequences, and, as at one glance, the organist perceives the "situation." He has come with her dismissal from the church. She sees it in the dejected face, the troubled eyes, the weariness with which he throws himself into the nearest chair. The duty he has in hand he feels in all its irksomeness, and makes no concealment thereof,—indeed, some display perhaps.
From a little desultory talk about church-music, through which words ran at random, Mrs. Edgar broke at last, somewhat impatiently.
"What is it, Mr. Muir? Must your organist take the oath?"
The question caught him by surprise; it was uppermost in his thoughts, this hateful theme; but then how should she know it? He lost the self-possession he had been trying to maintain, the dignity of his judicial character broke down completely; he was now merely a kind-hearted man, a husband and father it is true, but for the moment those domestic ties were not like a fetter on him.
"I require no such evidence of your loyalty, Mrs. Edgar," he said,—"no evidence whatever."
"But—does not the church?"
This question was asked with a little faltering, asked for his sake; for evidently some knowledge he had, and had to communicate, that embarrassed him almost to the making of speech impossible.
"The church! No,—it is too late for that!"
And now he had thrown down the hateful truth. There it lay at the feet of the woman who at this moment assumed to the preacher's imagination a more than saint's virtue, a more than angel's beauty.
"What then?" she said. "What next, Mr. Muir? Do they want my resignation?"
"Yes."
Mr. Muir said this with a humbled, deprecating gesture of the hand. At the same time bowed his head.
"I commission you to carry it," she said.
"I will not," he answered, almost ferociously.
"Mr. Muir!"
"I consider it an outrage."
"No,—a misunderstanding."
That mild magnanimity of speech completed the overthrow of his prudence.
"A misunderstanding, then, that shall be rectified to your honor," he exclaimed, "in the very place where it has gained ground to your dishonor. If you resign, Mrs. Edgar, it must be to come at once to my house as a guest. If the people are infatuated, the minister need not be of necessity. My wife will welcome you there; if the law of the gospel cannot protect you from suspicion, it can at least from harm."
So all in a moment the man got the better of Mr. Muir. What a deliverance was there! This was the man who had preached and prayed for the Government till more than once he had been invited to march out with the soldiers as their chaplain to battle, opening his doors to one whom the loyal church rejected,—opening them merely because she was a woman on whom suspicion he believed to be unjust had fallen.
Her face lighted, her eyes flashed, she smiled. These were precious words to hear from any good man's lips. They broke on the air like balm on a wound.
"Not for all the world would I allow it," she answered. "This is no time to complicate affairs. I thank you, and I confess you have surprised me. I did not expect this even of you. It is needless for me to say that I feel this disgrace as you would feel it; but I understand the position of the church, and cannot complain. If I were guilty, this treatment would be only too lenient. And it is almost guilt to have incurred suspicion."
"I will never be the bearer of your resignation, then,—never, Mrs. Edgar! I wash my hands of this business!"
She smiled again. The man in his wrath seemed to have seized on a child's weapon. He interpreted her smile, and said,—
"My position will be well understood, if another is the bearer. And I wish it to be. I wish men to know that I have no hand in this business. The church is a persecutor. I, her son, am ashamed of her."
"It has given me my opportunity to make a defence. And I can make none, Mr. Muir. My great mistake was in remaining here. Ruin, however, is not so rare a thing in these days that I should be surprised by it, even if it overtake me."
"Ruin! Aye. What curses thicken for their heads who have brought this upon us! Unborn millions will repeat them, and God Almighty sanction and enforce them."
Mr. Muir paused. What arrested him? Merely the countenance of the woman before him. If all those curses had gathered into legions of devils, crowding, swarming, furious, armed with lash and brand, about the form of one who represented love, joy, beauty, all preciousness to her, the terror and the anguish looking from her face could not have been intensified. But she said no word.
How should she speak?
As if in spite of him, and of all he had been wont to hold most sacred and potential, in spite of church and congregation, Constitution and country, the minister had spoken simply for humanity under oppression; had he not earned her confidence? Did he not deserve to know at least what real ground there was for the suspicions roused against her?
Nay, nay! When did ever Love seek deliverance at the cost of the beloved? What woman ever betrayed to secret friend the sin of him she loves? Let all creation read the patent facts, behind them still remains the inviolate, sacred arcanum, and before it stands sentinel Silence, and around it are walls of fire.
Not from this woman's lips should mortal ever learn she was a Rebel's wife!
For Mr. Muir, in his present mood, it was only torture to prolong this interview. He felt himself unfit for counsel or argument,—unfit even for confidence, had it been vouchsafed. But he held, with a tenacity that could not but have its influence on his future acts and life, to the purpose that had broken from him so suddenly, and not less to his own surprise than to the organist's. From this day she was at liberty to seek protection under his roof from threatened mobs and hot-headed church-wardens. Mr. Deane was one man, he himself was another; and if a day was ever coming to the world when Christian magnanimity must rise in its majesty and its strength, that day had surely dawned; if the Christian ministry was ever to know a period when the greatness of its prerogatives was to be made manifest, that period had certainly begun.